Environment

Global Warming/Cooling? Water Contamination? Air Pollution? Low Oil Supply? Deforestation? How bad off do you guys think we are environmentally and what should we do about it? Feel free to add more subjects. I just came up with these off the top of my head.


Myself, I find Global Warming to be a joke. We've experienced one of the worst winters in Iowa this year and have consistently broken low temperature records all over the board. My school is even considering extending the day bay a half hour to account for our snow days. I'm sick of this "Global Climate Change" business; I mean, they can't even decide if the world's getting hotter or colder! Perhaps both? There's a word for that: Seasons.

Our water and air in the US is also great. It's amazing how clear the Boundary Waters are... you can see almost twenty feet deep! Sure, countries like China need some work, but I think we worry way more than we should about our own pollution. We (the US) are fine where we are now.

As for oil... I don't know much about that. I do know, however, that the US is very dependent on oil and needs to look into some other options. Wind? Solar? Nuclear? Ethanol? They all have great perspectives. I also think, however, that the (US) government should stay out of regulating fuel dependency on vehicles and other similar sorts of practices.

In Iowa we plant more trees than we cut down, so I'm not extremely worried about deforestation. I would also say that some significant sized chunks of land do need to be preserved, though, for a variety of reasons.

We shouldn't do a thing.
Well, we should at least to depend on a more abundant fuel source. BECAUSE I WANT MORE SPACE TRAVEL!

Well, I'm trying to find a clip from a show that would prove my point I'm going to make perfectly ("A Global Warning?") but people on Youtube are fucking retarded. I keep getting 2012 shit instead.

Anyway, the truth of Global Warming lies in the way oil came to be fossilized. Millions of years ago (I don't remember the exact time frame, I saw this a while ago) organisms living near the surface of the ocean lived off CO2, and did not give off oxygen like modern plants do. I'm not entirely sure how they came to die (FUCKING YOUTUBE!) but I think they said it had something to do with oxygen becoming more common in the atmosphere, and less CO2, as well as the planet cooling because of less CO2.

The Carbon Dioxide filled "bodies" (if you want to call them that) of these microorganisms sank when they died (they may have lived in shallow seas, not oceans, I don't quite remember all the facts, and I already know that's going to affect my argument) pooling together, and slowly fossilizing to become oil.

This would basically mean that vast amounts of CO2 that was once trapped underground, is now being pumped back into the atmosphere. Even if you don't believe in Global Warming, you gotta admit that's just not good.

Also, it had something to do with less white patches of ice reflecting sunlight, and more dark patches of ocean absorbing it, accelerating the effects of Global Warming.

CivBase wrote:
Myself, I find Global Warming to be a joke. We've experienced one of the worst winters in Iowa this year and have consistently broken low temperature records all over the board. My school is even considering extending the day bay a half hour to account for our snow days. I'm sick of this "Global Climate Change" business; I mean, they can't even decide if the world's getting hotter or colder! Perhaps both? There's a word for that: Seasons.

I don't really believe in Global Warming either, but in Ontario (province in Canada) we've had a warm winter that was a lot shorter than usual.

Aside from North America, 2009 was one of the warmest years on record for most of the world.

(again, tried to find where I saw this from the news site [that was not FOX] but couldn't. DAMN YOU INTERNET!)

PiEdude wrote:Well, I'm trying to find a clip from a show that would prove my point I'm going to make perfectly ("A Global Warning?") but people on Youtube are fucking retarded. I keep getting 2012 shit instead.

Anyway, the truth of Global Warming lies in the way oil came to be fossilized. Millions of years ago (I don't remember the exact time frame, I saw this a while ago) organisms living near the surface of the ocean lived off CO2, and did not give off oxygen like modern plants do. I'm not entirely sure how they came to die (FUCKING YOUTUBE!) but I think they said it had something to do with oxygen becoming more common in the atmosphere, and less CO2, as well as the planet cooling because of less CO2.

The Carbon Dioxide filled "bodies" (if you want to call them that) of these microorganisms sank when they died (they may have lived in shallow seas, not oceans, I don't quite remember all the facts, and I already know that's going to affect my argument) pooling together, and slowly fossilizing to become oil.

This would basically mean that vast amounts of CO2 that was once trapped underground, is now being pumped back into the atmosphere. Even if you don't believe in Global Warming, you gotta admit that's just not good.

Also, it had something to do with less white patches of ice reflecting sunlight, and more dark patches of ocean absorbing it, accelerating the effects of Global Warming.

I thought they did not give off tons of carbon dioxide? Before, microorganisms metabolized off of hydrogen sulfide, and then became intoxicated from elevated oxygen levels in the ocean, so they adapted to metabolizing Co2. But what you said made little sense, when they take in Co2, they release oxygen, and store the carbon in their bodies, and these become hydrocarbons while releasing the oxygen into the atmosphere. This process resulted in the oxidization of a lot of the metals found in the earths crust, that's why in some areas, the soil is reddish colored. Marine photosynthesis is more efficient then the terrestrial version, the oceans produce 70% of oxygen in photosynthesis, even though planktonic blooms are only found in coastal/shallow areas, likewise, the oceans produce most of the worlds Co2.

Plankton blooms are the best thing that can happen in terms of reducing atmospheric Co2 levels, thats why there has been a push for dumping oxidized iron powder into the Indian ocean. Iron oxide increases the rate at which phytoplankton can metabolize Co2.

Okay, again, this was recalled mostly from memory, so the facts are likely muddled, but the basics remain the same.

Yeah, I don't think we can find any credible answers from Al Gore or from Fox News or anywhere else unless we ask a Professor of Biology...

Which I soon will!

There are some pretty neat ways people have thought of making the earth cooler.

1) Sequestration. Making facilities that absorb CO₂ and store it in underground reservoirs.

2) Using boats to spray salt water in the air in order to make the clouds more reflective of the suns ray's. It's a rather cheap methond.

3) Giant lens's in space designed to reflect the suns rays. The most expensive, would cost a couple trillion, so I don't see it happening

4) Reforestation, adding more trees will pull CO₂ out of the air.

5) Painting stuff with reflective paint. Simple and cheap, but it'd only cause a local change in temperature. It could also not be to your wanting really...

6) Getting blimbs to spray chemicals into the atmosphere that will cause sun ray's to reflect.

7) Iron Dust
Iron particles spread over unproductive parts of the ocean cause photosynthetic plankton blooms. The plankton absorb carbon dioxide. When they die, they carry some carbon to the ocean bottom.

So those are few ideas how we can "cool" the earth, should anyone want to do that.

They should mix things up, like have blimps that shoot 'sapling bullets' into the ground, like a tree machine gun.

Or painting boats with reflective paint.

water and air pollution are serious issues, and they cause health and environmental issues in short and long term. Basically everyone agrees with that though, so there isn't much to say there except whether it's worth it to do anything about it.

Man-made global warming, however, is iffy. I'm inclined to disagree with it simply because Al Gore is involved.

BBJynne wrote:water and air pollution are serious issues, and they cause health and environmental issues in short and long term. Basically everyone agrees with that though, so there isn't much to say there except whether it's worth it to do anything about it.

Man-made global warming, however, is iffy. I'm inclined to disagree with it simply because Al Gore is involved.

Damn BB, I didn't know there was a serious bone in your body.

*waits for ensuing penis joke*
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I think that the environment is an issue we need to take care of. However, I believe that people come first. For example, because of the Global Warming scare, people started saying Advair was contributing to pollution, and that we should stop using it. At the time, Advair was the only medication available for people with serious asthma. Further, we've pretty much banned coal in third world nations like Africa, because it is a very dirty resource. However, because third world nations can't gain access to cheap energy, locals are forced to burn debris to stay warm at night. If you don't die from exposure, you die from lung disease later. I believe we should actively try to cut down on pollution, but after we've dealt with other issues.

Yeah, almost all environmental pollution can be corrected, trash can be turned into plastic, and metal can be recycled, and air can be filtered.

I mean, how hard is it to put a filter over a car muffler? or a smokestack? Air pollution can be pumped into the ground, or converted into other chemicals.

The sign of Global warming is extreme weather conditions. The Northeast had three times the annual snow fall this winter, and we are now suffering 57 mph wind (which is a lot around here).

On an unrelated note, we have also had the Chilean and Haiti earthquake. And i believe another bad one in China about a year ago.

Apparently, Mother Nature is pissed.